Category The Century Dictionary – 1891

Kraft Mayonnaise Attempts to "Hack" the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year

Bran

The marketing minds behind Kraft Brand Mayonnaise sent an 8-foot replica of a jar of mayonnaise to the offices of Merriam-Webster. According to their Instagram post, this gift of "the moistest delivery the world has ever seen" was sent as part of a campaign to get the dictionary to declare the adjective "moist" as the next word of the year. The back of the gigantic jar reads:

Dear Dictionary Gatekeepers,

Here is a 2023 pound jar of Kraft Real Mayo aka the Moist Maker, aka the Moistiest.

For years, we've watched "moist" be degraded by the internet... the media deeming it "universally" hated.

We won't let this slander go on any longer! Our mayo is indisputable evidence that moist is a great word, and that every meal is better moist!

Since you've done nothing to redeem its true meaning, we'll keep searching "moist and hack your competition.

With America's help, we'll make Moist your Word of the Year.

Moistly, Kraft Real Mayo

I learned about this through a social media post by my friends at Johnson's Dictionary Online. I think Kraft would be quite satisfied with Johnson's second definition for moist (and they may also enjoy the quote by Blackmore for use in their campaign combatting dry food):

MOIST. adj. [moiste, moite, French.]
1. Wet, not dry; wet, not liquid; wet in a small degree.
Why were the moist in number so outdone,
That to a thousand dry they are but one. Blackmore.
Many who live well in a dry air, fall into all the diseases that depend upon a relaxation in a moist one. Arbuthnot.
Nor yet, when moist Arcturus clouds the sky,
The woods and fields their pleasing toils deny. Pope.
2. Juicy; succulent. Ains.

This explicit sense of yummy juiciness is absent from The Century Dictionary a century later, but the usage notes there do note that, in contrast to synonyms like dank and damp, moist is generally used in positive connotations. There's no feeling of ickiness attached to its use. Unfortunately, The Century Dictionary has not survived, so Kraft can't petition their offices for assistance in throwing off the online squeamishness around moist.

moist (moist), a. and n. [< M.E. moist, moyst < OF. moiste, F. moite, damp, moist, < L. musteus, new, fresh, < mustum, new wine, mustus, new, fresh: see must2.] I. a. 1. New; fresh. [Obsolete or prov. Eng.]

Hire hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,
Ful streyte y-teyd, and shoos ful moyste and newe. Chaucer, Gen. Prol. to C. T., l. 457.

2. Damp; slightly wet; suffused with wetness in a moderate degree: as, moist air; a moist hand.

In places drie and hoote we must assigne
Hem mooldes moist, and ther as it is colde. Palladius, Husbondrie (E. E. T. S.), p. 81.

The hills to their [the clouds'] supply
Vapour, and exhalation, dusk and moist,
Sent up amain. Milton, P. L., xi. 741.

Moist chamber, a chamber which enables objects under microscopic examination to remain moist, and be studied without intervention of thin glass. Micrographic Dict. — Moist color. See color. — Moist gangrene. See gangrene, 1. — Moist gum. Same as dextrine. =Syn. 2. Damp, Dank, Moist, Humid. Damp is generally applied where the slight wetness has come from without, and also where it is undesirable or unpleasant: as, a damp cellar, damp sheets, a damp evening. Dank strongly suggests a disagreeable, chilling, or unwholesome moistness. Moist may be a general word, but it is rarely used where the wetness is merely external or where it is unpleasant: as, a moist sponge, a moist hand, moist leather. "If we said the ground was moist, we should probably mean in a favorable condition for vegetation; if we said it was damp, we should probably mean that we ought to be careful about walking upon it." (C. J. Smith, Synonyms Discriminated, p. 293.) Humid is a literary or scientific term for moist, but would be applicable only to that which is so penetrated with moisture that the moisture seems a part of it: as, humid ground, but not a humid sponge or hand.

Combing out her long black hair
Damp from the river. Tennyson, Princess, iv.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank. Coleridge, Ancient Mariner.

Give me your hand; this hand is moist, my lady. Shak., Othello, iii. 4. 36.

Growths of jasmine turn'd
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree. Tennyson, Fair Women.

II. n. Wetness; wet; moisture.

So, too much Moist, which (vnconcoct within)
The Liuer spreads betweixt the flesh and skin,
Puffs vp the Patient, stops the pipes and pores
Of Excrements. Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, i. 2.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2023

Bran

A screenshot of NPR’s article about the 2023 Word of the Year

A couple of days ago Merriam-Webster announced that its Word of the Year for 2023 is "authentic", triumphing over trendy words like "rizz" and "deepfake." In their blog post on the word of the year selection, Merriam-Webster noted that "authentic" is rather difficult word to define, and tends to have different meanings for different people. It's certainly a word that feels important this year. This year has seen the growth of technologies such as ChatGPT and Dali, which raise questions about machine-generated creative output, especially when it relies on the often unwanted scraping and wholesale consumption of thousands of human-generated works without acknowledgment or compensation. It has also been a rough year for diversity and inclusion efforts in workplaces and schools; the previous pushes to have employees bring their "authentic" selves to the workplace have been hampered or reversed in many cases due to businesses caving into economic and vocal pressure from conservative groups and due to the passage of "anti-woke" legislation in many states and communities across the United States. Here's a look at how the word has been defined over the past three centuries, with definitions drawn from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries:

Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 dictionary, defined the winning word with just a single sense, noting that, in contrast to current usage, “it is never used of persons:”

AUTHE’NTICK. adj. [authenticus, Lat.] That which has every thing requisite to give it authority, as an authentick register. It is used in opposition to any thing by which authority is destroyed, as authentick, not counterfeit. It is never used of persons.

Thou art wont his great authentick will
Interpreter through highest heav'n to bring. Par. Lost, b. iii.

She joy'd th' authentick news to hear,
Of what she guess'd before, with jealous fear. Cowley.

But censure's to be understood
Th' authentick mark of the elect,
The publick stamp heav'n sets on all that's great and good. Swift.

Johnson's treatment of the word is starkly concise when compared to its treatment in The Century Dictionary (1891) over a century later. The word can now definitely be applied to persons, as evidenced by the 4th definition, at least in the capacity of stating that a person is trustworthy or speaks from authority.

authentic (â-then'tik), a. and n. [Early mod. E. also authentick, autentic, etc., < ME. autentike, auctentyke, < OF. autentique (mod. F. authentique, being changed, like the E. word, to suit the L. spelling) = Pg. authentico = Sp. auténtico = It. autentico, < LL. authenticus, < Gr. αὐθεντικός, warrented, authentic, original, < αὐθεντία, original authority, < αὐθέντης, contr. < αὐτοέντης (rare), one who does anything with his own hand, the real author of any act < αὐτός, self, + *ἔντης (found also in συνέντης, equiv. to συνεργός, a fellow-workman), of uncertain origin, perhaps < *σεντ-, < *ἀσαντ-, orig. form of Ionic ἐών, Attic ὤν (= L. ens, *sens), ppr. of εἶαι, be: see ens, be1. Cf. effendi, also ult. < Gr. αὐθέντης.] I. a. 1†. Having authority; possessing inherent authority; duly authorized; authoritative.

Men ought to fly all pedantisms, and not rashly to use all words that are met with in every English writer, whether authentic or not. E. Phillips.

2. Real; of genuine origin; being what it purports to be: opposed to pretended or imaginary, fictitious, counterfeit, apocryphal, or unauthorized: as, authentic documents.

As there is but one God, but one hope, but one anchorage for man — so also there can be but one authentic faith, but one derivation of truth, but one perfect revelation. De Quincey, Essenes, iii.

3. In law, executed with all due formalities; executed by the proper person and legally attested before the proper authorities: as, an authentic deed. — 4. Entitled to acceptance or belief; reliable; trustworthy; of established credit, credibility, or authority: as, an authentic tale, book, writer.

Origen, a most authentic author in this point. Brevint, Saul and Samuel, p. 77.

Of the manner in which the ruin of Nineveh was brought about we have nowhere any authentic record. Von Ranke, Univ. Hist. (trans.), p. 82.

That this mere dream is grown a stable truth
To-night's feast makes authentic. Browning, In a Balcony.

5†. Original; first-hand, as opposed to copied or transcribed. — 6. Own; proper; properly belonging to one's self. [Archaic.]

It were extreme partiality and injustice, the flat denial and overthrow of herself [Justice], to put her own authentic sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked man. Milton, Eikonoklastes, xxviii.

Men are ephemeral or evanescent, but whatever page the authentic soul of man has touched with her immortalizing finger, no matter how long ago, is still young and fair as it was to the world's gray fathers. Lowell, Oration, Harvard, Nov. 8, 1886.

7. In music, having an immediate relation to the key-note or tonic: in distinction from plagal, which has a corresponding relation to the fifth or dominant in the octave below the key-note.

— Authentic act, in civil law, an act or deed performed before and attested by a notary or other proper magistrate. — Authentic cadence, same as perfect cadence (which see, under cadence). — Authentic melodies. See melody. — Authentic modes or tones. See mode. =Syn. 2 and 4. Authentic, Genuine, correct, trustworthy, reliable, credible. When applied to a written document or a book, authentic indicates that it is reliable as narrating real facts; genuine, that we have it as it left its author's hands: as, an authentic history; a genuine text. Authentic is thus equivalent to trustworthy, reliable; genuine, to unadulterated. The "Memoirs of a Cavalier" is a genuine work of Defoe's, for it was written by him, but it is not an authentic work, although so plausibly assuming the tone of real biography that it "deceived even the great Chatham into citing the volume as an authentic narrative" (Backus, Revision of Shaw's Eng. Lit., p. 250).

A genuine book is that which was written by the person whose name it bears; . . . an authentic book is that which relates matters of fact as they really happened. A book may be authentic without being genuine, and genuine without being authentic. Bp. Watson.

II.† n. [< LL. authenticum, ML. also authentica, the original (of a document), neut. or fem. of authenticus: see I.] 1. An authoritative or genuine document or book. — 2. An original, as opposed to a copy or transcript.

Authentics and transcripts. Fuller, Church Hist., I. 42.

The Authentics, in civil law, a Latin translation from the Greek of the novels or new constitutions of Justinian, made by an anonymous author. So called as an unabridged translation of the novels, to distinguish it from the epitome made by Julian.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary, in 1981, recorded 8 different senses of "authentic" (in contrast to the current online Webster, which has 5 meanings):

au·then·tic \ə'thentik, ȯ'-, -tēk\ adj [alter. (influenced by Gk authentikos) of earlier autentyke, fr. ME autentik, fr. MF autentique, fr. LL authenticus, fr. Gk authentikos, fr. authentēs, murderer, master, doer (fr. aut- + -hentēs one that accomplishes) + -ikos -ic; akin to Gk anyein, anein to accomplish, entea (pl.) armor, Skt sanoti he gains] 1 obs : possessing authority that is not usu. open to challenge : AUTHORITATIVE 2 : worthy of acceptance or belief by reason of conformity to fact and reality : not contradicted by evidence : TRUSTWORTHY, CREDIBLE, CONVINCING <an ~ book on medieval customs> <an ~ portrayal> 3 a : vested with due formalities and legally attested : legally valid <an ~ act> b obs : properly qualified : AUTHORIZED 4 a : not imaginary or specious : REAL, GENUINE <~ joy over her return> b : not copied : ORIGINAL <an ~ manuscript> <an ~ Chippendale chair> 5 of a church mode : ranging upwards from the keynote — distinguished from plagal 6 : of an origin that cannot be questioned : indisputably proceeding from a given source that is avowed or implied : not spurious <an ~ historical reference> 7 a : marked by conformity to widespread or long-continued tradition <an ~ English custom> b : marked by close conformity to an original : accurately and satisfyingly reproducing essential features <an ~ portrait> 8 biol : VALID

syn GENUINE, VERITABLE, BONA FIDE: AUTHENTIC stresses fidelity to actuality and fact, compatibility with a certain source or origin, accordance with usage or tradition, or complete sincerity without feigning or hypocrisy <he told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant, and frightened his poor mother ... with long, and by no means authentic, accounts of the battle — W. M. Thackeray> <an esoteric jargon which does not even have the authentic ring of American slang — Stanley Walker> <only the authentic Christian tradition has the answer to our present problems — Times Lit. Supp.> <an authentic passion for concrete detail, in the mind of the author himself — C. E. Montague> GENUINE may stress definite origin from a certain source <whose letter — genuine or counterfeited — had been so instrumental in hastening this outbreak — J. L. Motley> GENUINE chiefly emphasizes a real actual character as contrasted with a fraudulent, deceptive appearance <whether it is a genuine insight into the workings of his own mind or only a false explanation of them — C. D. Lewis> <sham motor bus companies which if genuine would have been very sensible and publicly useful investments — G. B. Shaw> <palming off paper imitations of all kinds of valuables on the simple-minded ghosts and gods, who take them in all good faith for the genuine articles — J. G. Frazer> GENUINE may also describe emotions or mental states really experienced and not feigned <that was no conventional expected shock that she had received. It was genuine unforeseen shock — Arnold Bennett> In "a genuine authentic Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington", GENUINE emphasizes certainty of ascription to Stuart and AUTHENTIC emphasizes the close similarity between portrait and subject. VERITABLE indicates a true existence or actual identity <the ruffians were so utterly appalled, not only by the false powers of magic, but by veritable powers of majesty and eloquence — Charles Kingsley> It may indicate a very close similarity and stress the suitability of a metaphor <an old gray-haired lady, a veritable saint who had not been soured by her many deeds of charity — P. E. More> BONA FIDE, often commercial or legal in suggestion, stresses good faith and lack of intent to deceive or the avoidance of equivocal casuistry <bona fide residents who . . . maintained homes in no other places — Harper's>

The first couple of meanings in the 1981 definition approach but don't fully echo the current Webster's 2nd meaning, which specifically is applied to people: "true to one's own personality, spirit, or character."

It will be interesting to see how this word changes meaning and importance over the next few years, as machine learning algorithms weigh against human creations, as the younger generation pushes to have their diverse voices heard, and as society at large wrestles with whether authenticity matters and what being authentic really means for individuals, societies, brands, corporations, creative works, etc.

Vampire

Bran

Halloween approaches, so let's take a peek at a classic creature of the night: the vampire!

Definition and Etymology

The oldest English-language dictionary I own with a "vampire" entry is The Century Dictionary from 1891. This dictionary has an encyclopedic thoroughness and wonderful etymological information. Here is its entry on "vampire," from volume 6, page 6693:

vampire (vam'pīr), n. and a. [Formerly also vampyre; < F. vampire = Sp. Pg. vampiro = D. vampier = G. vampyr = Sw. Dan. vampyr (NL. vampyrus), < Serv. vampir = Bulg. vampir, vapir, vepir, vupir = Pol. wampir, also upior = Little Russ. vampyr, vepyr, vopyr, opyr, upyr, opir, uper = White Russ. upir = Russ. vampirŭ, also upirĭ, upyrĭ, obyrĭ (the Pol. wampir, Russ. vampirŭ, appar. < Serv.), a vampire; cf. North Turk. uber, a witch.] I. n. 1. A kind of spectral being or ghost still possessing a human body, which, according to a superstition existing among the Slavic and other races on the lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night, and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werwolves, heretics, and other outcasts become vampires, as do also the illegitimate offspring of parents themselves illegitimate, and any one killed by a vampire. On the discovery of a vampire's grave, the body, which, it is supposed, will be found all fresh and ruddy, must be disinterred, thrust through with a whitethorn stake, and burned in order to render it harmless.

2. Hence, a person who preys on others; an extortioner or blood-sucker. — 3. Same as vampire-bat. — 4. Theat., a small trap made of two flaps held together by a spring, used for sudden appearances and disappearances of one person. — False vampire, a leaf-nosed bat of South America, erroneously supposed to suck blood. See vampire-bat (b)(1), and cut under Vampyri. — Spectacled vampire. Same as spectacled stenoderm (which see, under stenoderm).

II. a. Of or pertaining to a vampire; resembling a vampire in character; blood-sucking; extortionate; vampiric.

The strong but disinterested wish to co-operate in restoring this noble University to its natural pre-eminence by relieving it from the vampire oppression under which it has pined so long in almost lifeless exhaustion.

Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 446.

Facts and Figures

The oldest work I have with an entry on the vampire is a facsimile of Brockhaus's Bilder-Conversations-Lexikon from 1841. This will start as our base for what the vampire is, what it does, and how it can be defeated. The entry "Vampyr" can be found in volume 4, on pages 552 (translation given after):

Vampyr heißt in der Naturgeschichte eine große, in den Tropenländern heimische Art Fledermaus (s. d.); ein im Morgenlande seit alten Zeiten herrschender Aberglaube denkt sich aber unter demselben Namen gespenstische Wesen, welche des Nachts umgehen, den Schlafenden das Blut aussaugen und sie dadurch umbringen sollen. Auf diese Art Gestorbene sollten dann wieder Vampyre werden, was die alten griech. Christen schon ungefähr ebenso von Denen glaubten, welche im Kirchenbann starben und die angeblichen Gespenster derselben Brukolakä nannten. In Griechenland, Serbien, Dalmatien, Ungarn ist der Aberglaube an Vampyre noch immer verbreitet und war vor ungefähr 100 Jahren die Veranlassung zu großen Besorgnissen und gerichtlichen Untersuchungen in einigen Gegenden von Ungarn, welche die Aufmerksamkeit von ganz Europa rege machten. In einem Dorfe an der serbischen Grenze sollte nämlich ein Hayduck am Bisse eines Vampyrs gestorben und hierauf ebenfalls als Vampyr seine Freunde und Bekannten gequält, ja mehre derselben schon umgebracht haben. Seine Leiche ward daher mehre Wochen nach dem Tode wieder ausgegraben, ihr ein Pfahl durchs Herz gestoßen und der Kopf abgeschnitten, was auch mit den angeblich durch ihn Umgebrachten geschach und als ein Mittel gilt, solchen Vampyren ein Ende zu machen. Auch in Schottland und Irland ist unter den gemeinen Leuten ein ähnlicher Aberglaube verbreitet, so sehr er auch allem gesunden Menschenverstande widerstreitet. Byron hat ihn zu einem Gedicht, der deutsche Componist Marschner zu einer Oper benutzt. Bildlich werden zuweilen Wucherer und Andere, welche auf ungerechte Weise von Einzelnen oder auch von den Bewohnern eines ganzen Landes Geld erpressen und ihnen gleichsam Schweiß und Blut aussaugen, Vampyre genannt.

Vampyr, in natural history, is the name of a large bat (which see) that makes its home in tropical lands; a superstition which has ruled in eastern lands since ancient times uses the same name to refer to a ghostly being, which goes around at night sucking the blood of the sleeping and thereby killing them. Those who die by this method are supposed to then become vampires themselves; the old Greek Christians believed that this would also happen to those who died excommunicated from the church and they called the resulting spirits 'brukolakä.' The superstition surrounding vampires is still present in Greece, Serbia, Dalmatia, and Hungary; approximately 100 years ago this was the cause of great concern and judicial investigations in a number of areas in Hungary, which caught the attention of all of Europe. In a village on the Serbian border, supposedly, a Hajduk died due to a vampire bite and tormented his friends and acquaintances himself as a vampire, even killing a number of them. His corpse was dug up again a number of weeks after his death, a stake plunged through his heart and his head chopped off, and this was supposedly also done with those he killed in order to bring an end to these vampires. A similar superstition is spread among the common people of Scotland and Ireland, despite how much it goes against all healthy human understanding. Byron used it in a poem, and the German composer Marschner used it in one of his operas. Metaphorically the term vampire is also applied to usurers and others who oppress individuals or even the entire populace of a country unfairly, and thus suck their blood and sweat.

Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia, 1887, reaches to Greek myth for the origin of the vampire and also elaborates on the panic which swept central and eastern Europe; the digging up of graves is no longer confined to a few areas in Hungary. "Vampire" is found in volume 8, on page 249:

Vam'pire [Fr.], according to a superstition still existing among the lower classes in Hungary, Servia, Romania, and the Christian population of the Balkan peninsula, a kind of ghost which during the night leaves the grave and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women. It is probable that this superstition originated from the ancient myth of the lamiæ, but it was much strengthened by the belief, common in the Middle Ages all through the Greek Church, that the bodies of those who died under the ban of the Church were kept alive by the devil, and by him sent out to ruin their friends and relatives. Early in the eighteenth century a vampire panic fell over Servia and Hungary, and spread thence into Germany. Books were written pro et contra, and thousands of graves were opened, and corpses which looked suspicious were fastened with nails and bolts to the ground, that they should not wander any more. Among the Wallachs it is still customary to drive a nail through the head of the corpse into the bottom of the coffin.

The Students Cyclopædia of 1900 clarified the connection to the ancient Greek lamiæ mentioned above, but otherwise adds no new information: "In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, beings of a similar nature existed, called the Lamias. These were beautiful women who allured youths to their embrace in order to feed on their flesh and blood" (volume 2, page 1356).

The eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1910, combines the mythological vampire and the vampire bat into a single entry; below I have only excerpted the portion that deals with the supernatural being. This entry is notable for attempting to guess at a rational explanation for why such a superstition could have arose (though it makes one wonder just how many people were buried alive back then). This entry can be found in volume 27, on page 876, and includes alternate forms of the vampire not found in my other reference works (that wayward downy feather next to your pillow? total vampire) and expands the sorts of dead who could arise as vampires (suicides, those who met a violent death, etc):

VAMPIRE, a term, apparently of Servian origin (wampir), originally applied in eastern Europe to blood-sucking ghosts, but in modern usage transferred to one or more species of blood-sucking bats inhabiting South America.

In the first-mentioned meaning a vampire is usually supposed to be the soul of a dead man which quits the buried body by night to suck the blood of living persons. Hence, when the vampire's grave is opened, his corpse is found to be fresh and rosy from the blood which he has thus absorbed. To put a stop to his ravages, a stake is driven through the corpse, or the head cut off, or the heart torn out and the body burned, or boiling water and vinegar are poured on the grave. The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides and those who have come to a violent end or have been cursed by their parents or by the church. But any one may become a vampire if an animal (especially a cat) leaps over his corpse or a bird flies over it. Sometimes the vampire is thought to be the soul of a living man which leaves his body in sleep, to go in the form of a straw or fluff of down and suck the blood of other sleepers. The belief in vampires chiefly prevails in Slavonic lands, as in Russia (especially White Russia and the Ukraine), Poland, and Servia, and among the Czechs of Bohemia and the other Slavonic races of Austria. It became specially prevalent in Hungary between the years 1730 and 1735, whence all Europe was filled with reports of the exploits of vampires. Several treatises were written on the subject, among which may be mentioned Ranft's De masticatione mortuorum in lumulis (1734) and Calmet's Dissertation on the Vampires of Hungary, translated into English in 1750. It is probable that this superstition gained much ground from the reports of those who had examined the bodies of persons buried alive though believed to be dead, and was based on the twisted position of the corpse, the marks of blood on the shroud and on the face and hands — results of the frenzied struggle in the coffin before life became extinct. The belief in vampires has also taken root among the Albanians and modern Greeks, but here it may be due to Slavonic influence.

The World Book encyclopedia of 1919 mentions that the victims of vampires are often unaware of what is killing them: "According to the absurd belief, so quietly does it work that the victim is not aware of what is happening, but gradually wastes away and dies" (volume 10, page 6025). The Encyclopedia Americana of 1924 notes that this is why corpses were carefully inspected after death, in case they need special anti-vampire treatment: In some places where the belief in vampires prevails, when a person dies a careful examination is made by a skilled person lest he should have been killed by a vampire and so be liable to become one; if this is suspected, the body may be pierced with a stake cut from a green tree, the head cut off and the heart burned. This is also the process for destroying the vampire spirit in a corpse believed to be already a vampire. The belief has been treated by Philostratus and Phlegon of Tralles; has served a literary purpose in Goethe's 'Braut von Korinth' and the operas of Palma, Hart and von Lindpainter. While seemingly a primitive and savage superstition, it has survived in many forms. Consult Ralton, 'Russian Folk-tales'; Hert, 'Der Werwolf' (1862); Stoker, B., 'Dracula' (1899)" (volume 27, page 662).

Taking a peek inside modern American and European encyclopedias, we find that the Brockhaus of 1984 (volume 22, page 379) states that vampires are a variant of the traditional German blood-sucker mentioned in Martin Luther's Table Talks. It also mentions the lamia found in Johnson's Universal and the Student Cyclopædia entries, but attributes the term to Latin literature. This entry also mentions the 1913 film Dracula, and directs the reader to a separate entry on Dracula. The 1992 edition of the World Book is the first of my reference works to mention Vlad the Impaler, in its description of Stoker's Dracula: "The character of Dracula is based on Vlad Tepes, a cruel prince from Walachia (now part of Romania). Vlad was nicknamed Dracula, which in Romanian means son of the devil or son of a dragon" (volume 20, page 284). The New Standard Encyclopedia from 1993 mentions the related word "vamp," a "scheming, heartless woman who lures a man to moral destruction" and its origin in the 1914 film A Fool There Was (volume 18, page V-11). The 1997 Encyclopædia Britannica (volume 12, page 253) is the only encyclopedia I own which includes a picture (a movie still featuring Bela Lugosi in the role of Dracula). The influence of Stoker's novel and its many film adaptations surely led to the signs "known to every schoolchild" for recognizing a vampire (they have sharp fangs and "they cast no shadow and are not reflected in mirrors") and warding one off ("displaying a crucifix or sleeping with a wreath of garlic around one's neck"); this information did not appear in the older encyclopedias.

Japanese Reference Works

The entire impetus for writing this post came about because I ordered some books from Jirō Akagawa's comedic mystery series Vampire All Year Round (吸血鬼はお年ごろ), about the daughter of a legitimate vampire from Transylvania who, along with her dad, solves supernatural mysteries in Japan. The Japanese word for vampire used in the book title is 吸血鬼, kyūketsuki, which breaks down kanji-wise into "blood sucking ghost/demon;" bloodsucking (吸血) already existed as a concept, so this word attaches the primary function of a vampire to the generic Japanese term for demon or ghost, 鬼. The directly imported word ヴァンパイア (vanpaia) is also used. The Encyclopædia Heibonsha features a wonderful table showing all of the major mentions of vampires in literature and film from 1751 (Dom Augustin Calmet's Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie) through 1979, including the 1922 German film Nosferatu (volume 4, pages 179-180).